13th jULY 2025 eVENSONG
Genesis 32:9-30 and Mark 7:1-23.
I love escaping into the pages of a good book, it is something I have enjoyed since I was a young child. Sometimes we can be tempted to skip ahead to find out what happens next. I remember being told by my mother how much it would ruin the story the story if I missed how the author had slowly developed their ideas page by page. Today’s lectionary reading from Genesis begins almost at the end of the story of Jacob and Esau. So please forgive me if I follow the rules and start at the beginning!
We are told that Isaac and Rebekah had not been able to conceive for over 20 years. Isaac prayed earnestly to God, Rebekah became pregnant and they were blessed with the gift of not one child but twins.
Isaac called out in earnest to the Lord and the Lord heard his prayer.
If we look closely at the text, there are several spoiler alerts of what was to come. We are told Rebekah’s pregnancy was immensely difficult, she was aware that even in her womb her twins seemed to be fighting one another. Rebekah cried out in anguish to the Lord. He foretold that her babies would represent two nations, one would be stronger than the other and in time her older child would serve her younger child.
Rebekah cried out in pain to the Lord and the Lord answered her.
Esau was Rebekah’s first born son, we are told that he was both hairy and red – I’m not sure those are the qualities that we would like to be remembered for the most! Rebekah named her second son, Jacob and he was born grasping the heel of his brother. In Hebrew there is a saying Jacob means ‘he deceives’. This does not seem to be a particularly auspicious start for Rebekah’s long awaited twins, Esau the hairy and Jacob the deceiver! We are told that Esau became a skilful hunter and was especially loved by his father. Jacob on the other hand was more content to stay at home and was loved deeply by his mother.
And so on to the part of the story that we all remember the most. Jacob is at home cooking a stew when his brother Esau comes in famished from the fields. Esau asks his brother for food immediately but Jacob comes up with a cunning plan. He withholds the food from his brother until he sells him his birthright. Esau is so hungry he agrees to anything as long as he can eat all that he wants. Jacob snatches his chance to be considered as the older son whose inheritance will be the greatest.
In Isaac’s old age his eyesight fails him, he is no longer able to see his sons clearly. On his death bed Isaac calls for his beloved first born son Esau. But Esau was out in the fields hunting so Rebekah encourages Jacob to take Esau’s place. Jacob deceives his father who is led to believe he is giving Esau his blessing. By the time Esau returns to see his father and the trick that Jacob has played is revealed. Esau vows to kill his brother. Jacob is instructed to flee to the land of Haran where his mother’s brother Laban lived. Jacob obeys and begins the long journey. As he travels he reflect on his actions and questions how he will be received by others. So instead of seeking shelter in a nearby town, he chooses to lie out alone under the stars. It was here that Jacob has an extraordinary dream. In his dream Jacob is promised safety, land and he is reassured that God will never leave him.
God calls out to Jacob as he sleeps, he comes when Jacob is in greatest need.
And now we are nearly at the end of the story, point at which today’s reading begins. Jacob stays away in the land of Haran for twenty years. He works for his uncle Laban, who treats him like a servant. Jacob longs with all his heart to return home. His life in Haran is becoming more and more difficult, his uncle’s sons were getting more and more resentful of him. Jacob senses the danger he is in, God calls out to him and instructs him to return to the land of his father.
God called out again to Jacob assuring him that he will be alongside him as he journeys home.
Jacob obeyed God’s call at once and set out with his wives, children and flocks. As he travelled he started to become nervous, he had been away so long. He became afraid and questions started whirring in his head, what would it be like to be home, why had he not heard from his mother, would Esau have forgiven him? I think all of us who have been away for any length of time can empathise with how Jacob was feeling as he approaches his long awaited destination. Jacob sends messengers ahead to reassure Esau that he is coming in peace. We hear that the messengers return far faster than Jacob expects telling him that Esau is coming to meet him and has 400 men with him. That is definitely not the welcome Jacob dreamed of…. 400 men, that was an army, how was he to respond, what should he do.
In fear and desperation Jacob cried out to the Lord:
‘O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, Lord who said to me go back to your country and your relatives and I will make you prosper. I am unworthy of the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant….. Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid.’
Jacob came to a stream rushing with water as it had recently rained. He helped his wives, children and the livestock across the river safely and they went on ahead of him. Jacob is drawn back to the river, he questions what he should do, should he flee, Esau’s men must be really close. Night had fallen and he sat alone in the darkness once more. Suddenly he felt a strangers hands on him, a mysterious man he did not recognise. Jacob fought with all his might. At first he thought the stranger was his brother Esau. The struggle went on for several hours all through the night. Yet the longer it went on the more it seemed like a dream. As dawn approached the stranger asked Jacob to release him. Jacob retorted ‘Not until you bless me’, remembering that his father had blessed him instead of Esau. Now he needed his brother’s blessing. The stranger asked, ‘What is your name’ to which he replied ‘Jacob’. It was then that Jacob realised that the stranger he assumed was his brother did not sound like Esau. The man said
‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, I shall call you Israel because you have struggled not only with God but also with humans and have overcome.’
God came again to his servant Jacob who had cried out to him in despair.
It was then Jacob realised that he had seen God face to face. He named the place where he had seen God face to face Peniel which means the face of God. Jacob’s struggle had been seen, acknowledged and God granted him his forgiveness. As Esau and his 400 men approached and again Jacob was afraid. But Jacob had nothing to fear, Esau stretched out his arms and welcomed him home.
Two weeks ago, I was at the Petertide ordinations of those who I trained alongside at the Local Ministry Programme. They were priested and the following day all led their first Communion services in their own churches for the first time. I have no doubt that all of those newly priested ministers have cried out, wrestled, questioned and felt unworthy of God’s call at some point in their journey to ordination. And yet they trusted, they stayed in that uncomfortable place and discerned what God was calling them to do. We are assured that God will be faithful and equip all those who answer his call.
We are all called, by name by God. I wonder what the Lord is saying to you at this moment, what is he calling out to you and what do you need to hear? Is there something on your heart today, like Jacob, that you need to cry out to the Lord?
The psalms are perhaps our greatest source of solace that the Lord will hear us when we call out to him. In Psalm 18 we hear the psalmist say,
‘In my distress I cried to the Lord,
I cried to my God for help.
From his temple he heard my voice:
My cry came before him, into his ears.’
Maybe this week, we can take some time to reflect on God’s call on our own lives. We do not know what the next chapter of our story might look like. Whether at this moment we feel we need to cry out and be heard or thank God for all that he has already shared with us. He is always ready to listen if we are ready to hear.
Genesis 32: 9-30
32 Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him; 2 when Jacob saw them he said, “This is God’s camp!” So he called that place Mahanaim.[a]
Jacob Sends Presents to Appease Esau
3 Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom, 4 instructing them, “Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: Thus says your servant Jacob, ‘I have lived with Laban as an alien and stayed until now, 5 and I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male and female slaves, and I have sent to tell my lord, in order that I may find favor in your sight.’ ”
6 The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, “We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him.” 7 Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed, and he divided the people who were with him and the flocks and herds and camels into two companies, 8 thinking, “If Esau comes to the one company and destroys it, then the company that is left will escape.”
9 And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will do you good,’ 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two companies. 11 Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us all, the mothers with the children. 12 Yet you have said, ‘I will surely do you good and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted because of their number.’ ”
13 So he spent that night there, and from what he had with him he took a present for his brother Esau, 14 two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, 15 thirty milch camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. 16 These he delivered into the hand of his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, “Pass on ahead of me, and put a space between drove and drove.” 17 He instructed the one in the lead, “When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you?’ 18 then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob; they are a present sent to my lord Esau, and moreover he is behind us.’ ” 19 He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, “You shall say the same thing to Esau when you meet him, 20 and you shall say, ‘Moreover your servant Jacob is behind us.’ ” For he thought, “I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterwards I shall see his face; perhaps he will accept me.” 21 So the present passed on ahead of him, and he himself spent that night in the camp.
Jacob Wrestles at Peniel
22 The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 24 Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then the man[b] said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel,[c] for you have striven with God and with humans[d] and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel,[e] saying, “For I have seen God face to face, yet my life is preserved.”
Mark 7 1-23
7 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands,[a] thus observing the tradition of the elders, 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash,[b] and there are also many other traditions that they observe: the washing of cups and pots and bronze kettles and beds.[c]) 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?” 6 He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’
8 “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”
9 Then he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’ 11 But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban’ (that is, an offering to God[d]), 12 then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, 13 thus nullifying the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.”
14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”[e]
17 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 He said to them, “So, are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19 since it enters not the heart but the stomach and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
